Politics
By Anayo Ezugwu
NIGERIAN youths have been urged to play a key role in reclaiming the country from bad governance and leadership. Oby Ezekwesili, former minister of Education, who made the call, said that the youths should be the purveyors of good governance because they are the worst beneficiaries of poor governance. Hence, she urged the youths to embark on self interested advocacy.
Speaking at the 18th NECCI PR Roundtable in Lagos, on the topic: ‘Youth in Governance,’ Ezekwesili said the youths must understand that enlightened self interest should push them to be the ones demanding for good governance for the Nigerian society.
According to her, 60 percent of the Nigerian population are youths and yet the country is not utilising the youthful population. She regretted that the youths are stock in poverty. Citing poverty index report of the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics, NBS, she said 60 percent of poor people in Nigeria are youth and women.
With the report and rising youth unemployment in the country, Ezekwesili stated that it is only the youths that could deliver an entirely different part way to development for Nigeria. She advised the youths to be the ones that will lead the fourth industrial revolution in the country.
She said Africa missed the agro-revolution, industrial revolution, and became a participant as a consumer of the third revolution, known as the ICT revolution. “But we are in the second machine age. And the second machine age is the age of the robotics, artificial intelligent, big data and simulation science.
“It is an entirely different world and this world could go to any country that applies itself to understand how to position their young people to be productive. If the youths get to that place of understanding that it is another revolution and that it could go to any part of the world that positions itself properly.
“Then what the youths would do is to disrupt governance and the way to disrupt governance is not only staying at the place of demanding for good governance but also actually embraces the space to offer good governance. In order to create space to offer good governance, the youths must then become people who are saying, you cannot become a disruptor if you are merely a substitute of what you needed.
“So if you cannot be a disruptor if you merely be a substitute of what provided you uninspired leadership, it therefore means that youths need to offer themselves up to be the disruptors of our political system that has offered poor leadership and bad poor governance. As I always tell people, youth is a currency that quickly disappears. So don’t get stock on the idea that we are the youths. You must take a very strong decision that you will be the youth that can disrupt poor governance.
“The failure is unsustainable. By 2050 Nigeria would have become the third largest populated country in the world. And if it continues with this pattern, you can imagine what the indicators as miserable as they are today would then be. I’m sure you don’t want it that in your time of youth, you failed to prepare for the future because when that future comes they would rant at you in the way that you have ranted at your parents who have not done right by you. It is time for you to change that legacy of intractable failure. That failure can be reversed and it falls on you to do so,” she said.
In her opening remarks, Nkechi Ali-Balogun, convener of NECCI PR, said focus this year on youths was because of the rising youth activism and empowerment globally. She said there was a consensus that the key to the advancement of any nation lies in a stand workforce and human capital. “One of Nigeria’s greatest asset no doubts is its human capital. The youth form a majority of this.
“The World Bank President, Jim Yom Kim, has recently called for an accelerated investment in human capital in Nigeria in order to secure future economic growth. Again, Akinwnumi Ambode, (2014) posits that the Nigerian youth is a socio economic and human capital goldmine that can catapult Nigeria from an emerging economy to a major world economy. To achieve this, we must assign to this critical demographic segment the resources for sustainable productivity,” she said.
July 27, 2018 @ 18:19 GMT|
Tags: Ezekwesili calls youth to involve in governance
